A Summer When Memories Were Made Now A Summer When Tragedy Struck

"People Won't believe me. They think I'm just bragging, the way I feel the way I do I should be on the wagon. All I need is one of your smiles. Oh me! Oh my! Baby do I feel high." That was such a catchy song by the Kingston Trio. It is too bad today's music doesn't reflect the true nature of the simplest rhythms and melodies of those wondrous years of long ago. As I think back to that time where the youth of that period were relatively so far removed from the harsh realities of the times. When one could go to the movies for 25 cents and catch a major show along with some very funny cartoons following the movie only to be able to watch it again. Green River and Squirt were the soft drinks available at the concession stand. Who would ever think that today's mega complexes that show numerous movies all at the same time and popcorn can cost as mush as the movie itself a whopping 6 bucks; Boy, how times have changed.


As so often on those Saturdays after the show we would have our parents drive us to the local A&W Root Beer stand and enjoy the ice cream sodas and burgers. Those wondrous days and evenings where entertainment didn't cast an arm or a leg. A dollar and a quarter could go a very long way. "Those lazy hazy crazy days of Summer" You know those days of soda's and hot dogs burgers and fries. It is like going into Peabody's way back machine and retrieving all those precious memories of wondrous years of adolescence and a youthful exuberance that astounds me even today.



It was this particular summer on the shores of Lake Geneva Tom, Bruce, Andy and I all had summer crushes on the girls of the lake, Rita, Katie and Mary Lou. My sister had her circle of friends too from Betsy, Carol and Marge. The innocent pranks us guys tried to pull off were just as precocious as anything I can remember. Remembering that particular time when we all piled into our parents cars and went to see the original screening of Ocean's Eleven. The one staring Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, and Dean Martin. There was some concern I remember from the parents that felt the movie was a little bit too mature for all of us teenagers but as I recall we all got such a kick out of the show our parents concerns were to become unfounded after all.


Now comes the sad reality of today. With the tragic episode in Aurora Colorado like the ones that are routinely shown on TV now days has hit every home in the nation. Could it be this tragic senseless carnage, one of many that continues to happen all too frequently in our society today, is the direct result of the way our society has evolved? As pondering as this question is the fact of the matter when everything is said and done the manifestation of greed has swept into every aspect of our society. No where has movie studios been so driven to exploit the public at large in the way they now hype movies. The build up to opening nights is just like a feeding frenzy of Sharks or Pariah devouring their prey. We also have a government whose unwillingness to break away from an agenda that has been carefully implemented all through-out this country where lobbyists that control the purse strings of every politician continue to steer this nation further down that slippery road to moral decay.


Time and time again we have witnessed deranged individuals whose ability to have access to materials, weapons, and devises who by design are only meant for one purpose only routinely carry out heinous atrocities against our own society. When will we ever learn? Again we all should use Peabody's Way Back Machine and visit a period in our history where morals were held to the highest extreme. Where jobs were available for all who wanted to work. Where families and individuals had enough disposable incomes to partake in the American Dream. Where benevolence and kindness ruled supreme not only in business but in the family values that defined a generation.


It is time for sober reflection of what has become of a society that continues to ignore the sanctity of life, where greed takes president over benevolence, where kindness toward others is completely ignored and where moral values continue to disintegrate to the point of no return. We can do more than just pray that another carnage like the one that happened in Aurora, Colorado doesn't happen again. When our own elected officials hide behind the lobbyist where their cloaks of deception and deceit continue to push this nation closer to that edge of darkness it is time to shed our own apathy. We must remember that our founding fathers when they penned the Constitution and the Bill of Rights the second amendment as stated has become misinterpreted to fit the will and agenda of the NRA.


In so many instances whether it is the Supreme Court, our own Congress or national organizations they all routinely redefine the context of what our founding fathers set forth when the constitution was written. As for that one glorious summer where memories were made unlike today we are now tempered by the circumstances of horrific violence reprecating the carnage that so often is displayed in the movies of the culture of our time. It is time we all stand up and realize what has taken place in our society for the past 50 years that has made the United States tremble in the wake of so many instances when tragedy keeps reoccurring. Maybe if we were to actually shoulder responsibility to the fact that this and all the other violent atrocities could have been avoided if our society had not veered away from the values and morals of a time long since past.